“That is to say, immortality is not of the essential nature of an angel as it is of the essential Nature of God. For God’s existence is such that He necessarily exists, He cannot but exist; His existence is not derived from another, but is from the power of His essential Nature, or rather is that very Nature. Not so with the angel, whose existence is a gift of God, and so the angel’s existence is no part of the idea of an angel, but is a property which is, so to speak, added on from without and accessory to the conception of such a being. Hence, in so far as an angel’s existence issues not of the mere force of his essential properties, but only of the Creator’s Will, we may say that by virtue of the said Will, not by force of his own nature, he continues in existence, and so far is immortal, although in another sense immortality may be called a natural property of an angel, inasmuch as there is no created power whereby he may be destroyed, and nothing in him that renders him liable to be destroyed by God—nay rather, everything about him demands that, once he is created, he should be for ever preserved in being.”—H.